


flowers have words on their leaves

by zonophone



Series: naki & shuu [1]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 01:22:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9358706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zonophone/pseuds/zonophone
Summary: Shuu teaches Naki the language of flowers.





	

'Tsuchimura!' Naki comes into the room, running.

'It's Tsuchimura,' Tsuchimura says, always splaining.

'And what I say? I tried on the suit like you said.'

Tsuchimura walks around him, hand on his chin, looking at the new white suit.

'Hm,' he makes a sound. 'And what's this?' he points to the front of the suit.

'Oh! S'a flower! Ya said the hole here was for that.'

'But this is a sundrop.' Yamamura crosses his arms.

'Hah? Nah, it's a flower.'

'It means desperate, you know?'

'Wh-? No... flower means flower. This is a flower.'

'You—flowers have meanings,' Yamamura says.

Naki raises his eyebrow. This guy's crazy, he thinks. He's always been strange, but this? S'too much.

'Flowers have a language.'

'Haah? That's not true! Flowers can't say words, they ain't even alive! Who's the fool now, Yamada?'

Yamada looks at him with that look he wears when he looks at him. Like he's tryina smile but he can't. Ah, it's sad, Naki thinks. Sometimes it reminds him of the way Yamori looked at him sometimes.

'Come with me, Mess Ye Naki,' Yamada says.

'Where?'

'I'll teach you.'

'Teach me? English again? I don't wanna... My head'll start hurting...'

'It's my head that will hurt. Just come.'

Naki follows. Maybe Yamamura's got problems with some stuff too, if his head hurts.

'Where're we going?' he asks, and then when he sees they're walking out the door: 'What if someone sees?'

'Try not to call attention to yourself.'

They walk in silence. It's kind of cold, the sun's about to set, but the sky's orange. Looks nice. There's a park around here too, maybe Yamamura wants to go play, Naki's pretty good at the see saw. They're couple of corners away from the building when Yamamura grabs his sleeve.

'We're here,' he says and points.

'What's this?'

'A flower shop—it says right there—A flower shop. They sell flowers.'

'I ain't lendin ya money. I got none.'

And he gives Naki that look again. Yeah, it's sad.

'Look,' he says. 'Do you know this flower?'

'S'a rose,' Naki says, proudly. Of course he knows, what a stupid question. Tsuchiyama really just seems more smarter than he really is.

'Red roses mean love.'

Naki looks at the flower trying to see what Tsuchiyama sees. But he can't read so even if he could see them he wouldn't understand any of the words that're supposed to be on the flowers.

'I can't read,' he splains.

'You don't need to. I'm telling you. Sundrops,' he points to Naki's flower, 'mean desperate. Red roses mean love.'

Ah, Naki thinks he gets it.

'I think I get it,' he says then, of course. 'Like how a heart means love, too, huh? Yamori taught me that!'

'We,' Tsuchiyama says.

'Not you, just Yamori.' Tsuchiyama really is ego—ego—selfish.

'Um. Well. This is a tulip,' he points to another flower.

'A ha.'

'If it's yellow it means fame. If it's red it means good bye.'

'Oh! And this one?'

'That's a camellia. It's love. Or bad luck.'

'Huh? Which one?'

'Both.'

'What's that?'

'It's love and bad luck.'

'Oh.' Naki gets it. A bad love. He crouches so his face is on the same level as the flowers. Tsuchimura stands next to him. He smells like flowers, but he always smells like flowers. Now he smells more like that.

'Daff and dills mean death. Christmas mean respect. Carnage mean trust. And these ones are called Gardens, they mean loyalty.'

Naki nods, touching the leaves and the petals. He can't see any words but at least he gets what Tsuchimura said.

'Did you understand, Mess Ye Naki?'

'Yeah!' Naki smiles up at him. 'Thanks for teaching me, Tsuchiyama!'

Tsuchiyama looks surprised, or something. He covers his mouth with his hand. He does this sometimes, sometimes when he talks to Naki and sometimes when he talks to Kaneki. Sometimes he looks like he's distracted, after he does this. Like he was sad but he didn't know it. Maybe he's lonely. But being lonely's so terrible Naki hopes it isn't that cos that's a really terrible thing. Naki's been lonely himself and it's awful. Tsuchiyama's a good guy, he shouldn't feel that way.

'It's Tsuchiyama,' he says after a while, but he's already turned away from Naki, is walking back to the building.

'I know that! Hey!' Naki jogs up to him. 'That was easy! Ya can teach me more English if ya want. Not now though, learnt too much today.'

Tsuchiyama smiles in that way he smiles sometimes, like he made a sort of line with his lips, Naki thinks. A small smile. And he nods. But he ain't looking at Naki so maybe he didn't nod and Naki only thought he did.

 

 

 

He really is grateful so he spends the next two days thinking about it. There ain't a lot to do, just wait for when they gotta all wear the suits so he thinks it over and he thinks it's a great idea, that he's had.

 

 

 

'Yamada!' Naki comes into the room, running. 'Look! This is what humans call “surprise”!'

Yamada turns away from the hanging suit he's smoothing out and looks at Naki.

'”Surprise”?' he sees the flowers on Naki's hands.

'Yeah! Yamori taught me about it. It would be boring without it, yeah?'

'Ah, I see. They're for me?'

'Yeah! I got 'em from that place we went to. I went with my bros, I trieda teach 'em about the flower words but I don't think they got it. I got you these cos you taught me!'

Yamamura takes the flowers from Naki and looks at them.

'Ah,' he says. 'Dahlias and gardens and christmas.'

'Yeah! Cos you're cool, I respect ya too, ya know?'

'Ah,' Yamamura says, covering his mouth with his hand again. He does that sometimes too. Maybe he's hungry. Then he says 'Thank you, Mess Ye Naki,' very softly, almost like he didn't wanna say it very loudly.

'Well yeah of course!' Naki says. The others are waiting for him so he has to go, he only came here to give Tsuchiyama the flowers. 'I'm happy you like 'em,' he says when he's by the door, turning back to wave. Tsuchiyama's giving him that other look he has sometimes, like he was sad and he didn't know. 'Ya can teach me more again sometime, ya know? We're fighting for Kaneki so you're like my bro, too.'

And finally Tsuchimura does that smile, the small one, but it's better than the other look, so Naki smiles back and waves again, twice, before he's gone.

 

**Author's Note:**

> this is nakis pov so ofc its simple & some stuff is just him misunderstandin  
> when shuu says we he's sayin oui, mess ye is monsieur ofc  
> the flower meanings aren't those, naki isnt gettin it all in the right order  
> he gives shuu flowers that mean secret crush, good taste, and nobility.  
> daff and dills are daffodils, christmas are chrysantemus, gardens are gardenias, carnage are carnations  
> thats it i think


End file.
